Shadow Truths
by Ace of Emeralds
Summary: Small glimpses into the lives of Sherlock and John. Based on quotes from Neil Gaiman.


**I love Sherlock and I love Neil Gaiman. This was bound to happen. (apologies for any misquotes or mistakes)  
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**First quote: "The Graveyard Book"**

**Second quote: "Fragile Things" **

**Third quote: "The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes"**

** Fourth quote: "Stardust"**

**Fifth quote: "Fragile Things"**

**Sixth Quote: "Fragile Things" (again)**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters are the property of the BBC and Arthur Conan Doyle and the quotes are the property of the brilliant Neil Gaiman.**

**Enjoy!  
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_"At the best of times his face was unreadable. Now his face was a book written in a language long forgotten, in an alphabet unimagined." _

John was colorblind, he had been since he was younger than he could remember. He wasn't angry about it or upset that he couldn't see color. It was a fact of life and he honestly couldn't imagine it any other way because it had never been any different; the world had always been a haze of greys and blacks and whites.

He learned to love seeing shadows and shades instead of the bright, noisy things that he thought colors would be. Other people would look at him sympathetically or ask how he could live in incredulous voices. Of course, others didn't notice.

"Pink. You got all that because you realized the case would be pink," he remembered saying to Sherlock on their very first case. "It had to be pink, obviously." John had almost laughed as he said, "Why didn't I think of that?" "Because you're an idiot."

He'd thought about telling him then but it felt like an admission of weakness when the man before him was so obviously invincible in every way.

Time had passed. _Things_ had happened. Things complete with a capital 'T' and italics. Somehow, John and Sherlock had fallen in love and hadn't even realized that they were doing it.

Then, suddenly, it was blindingly obvious because what else could all those lingering glances and inside jokes and Chinese takeaways have meant?

One night, when Sherlock and John were lying in bed together in the darkness, not touching, just listening to each other's breath, John whispered, "Sherlock?" Sherlock said nothing but John could tell that he was listening. "What color are your eyes?" he asked, biting his lip.

Sherlock understood. He always did and he murmured, "They're grey, John. My eyes are grey."

XxXxXxXx

_"There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts." _

He fell to his knees, eyes widening. His mouth opened in a silent scream and he felt like his heart was stopping and the word "no" just kept echoing in his mind. This was impossible. This could not happen.

He heard water rushing and he scrambled to the edge to look over. Water fell as black and smooth as glass, only to shatter and swirl into a million pieces at the bottom of the cliff.

His body was down there. Broken and mangled by now but it was down there. He felt a sudden urge to jump, to find that broken piece of the man he loved and to hold it and never let go because he couldn't, he just couldn't be gone.

The part of his mind that was still thinking rationally kept him on the very edge, clutching his lover's letter and feeling his heart break into pieces.

_John,_

_I have never been one for dramatic goodbyes or farewell letters but I suppose I must break that rule just this once, seeing as it is my last chance to do so._

_ I could tell you so much. I could tell you how much I loved my mother when I was young and how much I hated my father. I could tell you the names I was called in school and the things that Mycroft did to make me feel better. Tell him that I wish I had been able to return the favor. _

_There are many things that you don't know about me and many that I don't know about you. I wish I'd had time to learn the things about you that I couldn't deduce but asking you now would be pointless, not to mention needlessly sentimental. As for telling you about me, well, you already know all the important things. I am certain that I am going to my death here. I hope that you will not miss me more than is absolutely necessary to keep my ego intact wherever it is that I'm going. _

_I love you. Goodbye. I love you. I wish I could be there to tell this to you over and over but I only have time to write it once more. I love you._

_Sherlock_

XxXxXxXx

_"You get what anybody gets - you get a lifetime."_

When Sherlock was young, a teacher asked him what he wanted to be as if he should have his entire life planned out. When he told her he didn't know, she asked him if he wanted to do nothing with his life. He was seven years old and he is not proud of his response. He should have brought up her chain smoking and the one night stands as well.

Sherlock wanted his lifetime to be filled with the things he craved, needed like oxygen, like the problems that his mind could see through with glass-clear clarity.

He didn't want to do nothing with his life; he wanted to do everything. Sherlock wanted to know what turned ordinary people into murderers, what it felt like to answer a question so difficult that your mind just stopped the first time you heard it. He wanted to run after someone who needed to be stopped more than he did and feel the adrenaline racing through his veins as he jumped from street to street, building to building.

Sherlock knew exactly what he wanted to be. He just didn't have a name for it yet.

XxXxXxXx

_"Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us."_

No one could quite predict when they would show up. They would just be there sometimes, Sherlock strutting in his long, flapping coat with his faithful Dr. Watson a couple steps behind.

Those were the good days, the days when criminals were brought to justice and sometimes, if they were lucky, lives were saved.

On the days that they didn't come, criminals were caught eventually but not before too many lives were lost that could never be replaced. Those were the bad days.

But when the team saw them striding towards their crime scenes, Sally Donovan rolled her eyes and started thinking of witty comebacks, Dave Anderson braced himself for the onslaught of insults and Gregory Lestrade smiled a tired smile that had seen too much and lost too much.

They weren't exactly angels but they were as good as the world was likely to get.

XxXxXxXx

_"If you were to try and pick him out of a group of boys, you'd be wrong. He'd be the other one. Over at the side. The one your eye slipped over." _

John Watson was a perfectly ordinary teenager. He was short and blond and stocky. He played football and got grades that were good but not exceptional. He went out with a pretty girl called Samantha who had big brown eyes and loved to read.

No one ever picked him for any special award, he was never particularly good at anything. He went to medical school because his mother died of cancer and he wanted to help people so that they didn't have to feel that pain.

He wasn't exceptional; there were hundreds of people who had his story, thousands more who had his name.

Sherlock meets John Watson when he is thirty-four years old. He is unexceptional, a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and a psychosomatic limp who lends a sociopathic genius his phone and his heart.

He is the most extraordinary man that Sherlock Holmes has ever met.

XxXxXxXx

_"The view changes from where you are standing._

_Words can wound, and wounds can heal._

_All of these things are true."_


End file.
